Give Us This Day
by fialka62
Summary: Beckett wants a day, just one day, to dive into this new relationship with Castle. Alas, Other People have Other Plans. Oneshot that grew a plot. Oh dear.
1. Chapter 1

He wakes almost unaware that he's been dozing; body aching, emotions exhausted, the weight of depression heavy against his chest.

And then he realises it's not depression. He hasn't dreamt it. It's real. She's here.

He stops himself gasping in a breath of much needed air - if he wakes her, she might wish she wasn't here, might get up and leave, might never come back. He breathes deep (because he must to still the panic), but slowly, watching her head rising with his chest.

She. Kate. Is here.

Here and sprawled along his side, soft and boneless, one knee drawn up over his stomach, so that he can feel the damp heat of her against his thigh. He concentrates on his hand, spread across her back. It wants to move, wants to feel the whole warm length of her, map the curves of hip and waist and breast, stroke the velvet skin beneath her arms, between her thighs. Stroke her until she's clutching him and arching against his fingers, whispering his name on a satisfied sigh.

Instead, he holds himself still, drinking in the smell of her hair, the weight of her arm. Her fingers moving clumsily against his jaw. 'Are you watching me sleep?' she mumbles into his chest.

'Maybe a little?'

'That's creepy,' she answers, but he can feel her smile pushing against him. She tilts her head back, regarding him with tender, sleepy eyes. Loving eyes. He thinks it's love. It has to be, right? Otherwise she wouldn't be here.

They don't say anything for awhile, content to just lie tangled in each other's warmth. His hand, released, stroking up and down her spine, her fingers in his hair, rubbing gently at his scalp. He is still watching when her eyes finally drift closed and her fingers stop and she falls asleep, safely nestled in his arms.

* * *

When he wakes again, she's gone, and the disappointment nearly crushes him. And then he realises that he can hear someone moving around the kitchen, and he trips out of bed, almost bashing his face against the nightstand in his rush to get his boxers back on.

But indeed she's there, not a dream, and not his mother or Alexis. There and making breakfast, padding about his kitchen in bare feet, swimming in his maroon shirt and - judging by the glimpse of rounded bottom revealed when she leans over to stir the eggs - not much else.

He's springing to attention fast, faster than he'd have expected considering how well and truly they exhausted that potential last night. Thank god for mouth and hands, which only grow more skilled with age, rather than less energetic. Speaking of hands, his are now sliding under the shirt, finding indeed nothing else, nothing between her and his exploring fingers, coaxing her into arousal. She drops the spatula on the counter as he spreads a hand across her belly, pulling her tight against him so he can nibble her neck.

'Castle,' she sighs, as if it could be anyone else. It had better not be anyone else. 'Burning. Eggs.'

He reaches over and turns the stove off with his belly hand, quickly captures her again. 'I can't help it,' he murmurs to the satin skin behind her ear. 'You are so incredibly hot.'

'Actually, I was a bit cold until just a minute ago,' she tries, but then he slides his middle finger into her and it ends on a strangled whimper.

'Spread your legs,' he growls, thoroughly enjoying her gasp of surprise at being ordered around. Last night it was she who did the ordering, she who made love to him. Twice. Three times if he counts offering herself to his mouth when they both realised a third try without a bit of restorative nap time was pretty much out of the question. He's going to have to work on that stamina thing. Either that or invest in a stock of little blue pills.

Right now though, he's good to go, and by the feel of it, so is she.

'Please tell me your mother's not going to walk in. Or-'

'Not going to walk in. Either of them,' he answers. And then there's nothing more to talk about.

* * *

After, he lets her finish the eggs while he sips the coffee she's made in his old-fashioned perculator, the one he keeps as decoration. It's perfectly functional, of course, being one of the few items he owns that requires no power to run. He'll have to remember to pack it when the zombie apocalypse comes.

She's quiet as they eat, barely saying a word, but she looks peaceful enough to still the anxious flutter of doubt, to let him enjoy their meal. She's as in need of sustenance as he is, judging by the amount of food she's made, and how much of it she puts away herself. He remembers another time long ago, Kate in his t-shirt nervously cooking up five different kinds of breakfast and babbling a blue streak to justify it. So different from this Kate sitting across from him, smiling at him as she reaches for another slice of toast, her face washed clean of makeup, her hair haphazardly gathered into a loose bun. She looks ten years younger than she did last night, open and vulnerable. He feels his inner caveman kick into action, the fierce need to protect her from the Dragons and the Smiths and the daily perps who...

He suddenly realises what's been bugging him.

'Kate, it's ten o'clock. Shouldn't you have been at work hours ago?'

She puts the toast down, takes a breath and meets his eyes.

_Uh-oh. _

'Not today. I quit.'

She's calm about it. Too calm? He searches her face, but he can't tell. She can't _want _this. He opens his mouth to ask what, when, how, and is stopped by her fingers, soft against his lips.

'I'll tell you,' she says, leaning earnestly towards him. 'I will, I promise. Just not right this minute.' Her fingers slide over the stubble on his cheek, curl around his ear, tugging him gently closer. 'Just let us have this day, Castle. One day where nothing else matters.'

He doesn't resist, helpless against the offer of her lips, already nibbling at his, and then her mouth opening, so tender, so willing...

He forgets. Does it matter? She's happy. She's here. With him. Loving him. Waiting for him as he comes around the counter, their lips still sealed, and crushes her to him, deepening the kiss, feeling her heartbeat growing stronger against his, her breath coming faster, burning against his lips.

'Yes,' she answers, covering his face with tiny kisses. 'Yes, yes, yes.'

He doesn't need to know the question. He just needs this.


	2. Chapter 2

It's 4.30 in the afternoon and Kate Beckett is running out of things to do.

She's cleaned her kitchen spotless, vacuumed everything - even her bookshelves - done her laundry, washed her hair, and even watched a guilty episode of _Temptation Lane_. She shouldn't be this restless, this unable to entertain herself. Not after just one day of unemployment. What is she going to do with all the days ahead? What if she never finds another job? What other jobs can an unemployed ex-cop who doesn't want to be a security guard even do?

_I know. We'll go to Hollywood, and you can work as a consultant on some procedural where they never listen to a word you say, and I'll hang out on our back deck in Malibu writing scripts about a beautiful tv show consultant who solves crimes in her spare time, waiting for you to come home so I can ravish you. _

God, even in her head he can still make her smile.

She left him after breakfast, after one more heated make-out session against the kitchen counter threatened to become an all-out session on the kitchen floor. Apart from that not being the most comfortable place in his otherwise very comfortable loft to make love, the last thing she wants is for Alexis to find out there's been a seismic shift in their relationship by walking in on them while they're in the middle of making the earth move. Just the thought of being caught in the act by someone's _child _is enough to make her blush like a twelve-year-old with her first crush. Even if that child is legally an adult, it's not an experience her past relationships have prepared her for.

Of course, nothing in her past relationships has prepared her for this one. A man with a grown child, a man who loves her so much he trembles when he touches her. A man she loves, god, crazy love that makes her heart pound with something like panic, only it's not. It's just...so very, very _much_.

It's going to take a bit of getting used to, this feeling so much.

But also? She's more than a little bit sore now that all the adrenaline is gone. Her arms feel like they've been wrenched from their sockets and put back reversed, there's a pulled muscle in her inner thigh, and probably in the back of her neck, and none of these things are a relic of making love. That's an ache of a different sort, and she would like to be able to walk without looking like she's been on a horse for the last six months.

At that last thought, she feels her face stretching into a wide, idiotic grin. He's a bit to straddle, is Castle, a large frame that has, okay, grown a little larger since they first met. Once, he must have been as tightly sculpted as the men she usually picks, but four years of hanging around the 12th eating like a cop has covered him over with a comfortable layer of mostly happy fat. Not that she's complaining. Actually, she really likes the way he feels, like a giant warm teddy bear she can wrap her arms and legs around. It's just that certain muscles haven't had a whole lot of exercise this last year.

That's what she should do right now. Exercise. Run this off, this overflow of emotion, this odd aimlessness (she's not used to having nowhere to go and nothing to do, it's that and not ridiculously missing him when they've only been apart for what, five hours?). She's been off-schedule since she got shot, her mileage down, her old sparring matches never resumed. She got her _ass _handed to her on that roof, and while that was its own kind of unwinable stupidity, she's not unaware that a year ago she'd have been a much better match. Stronger, faster, more agile. She likes the feel of her body under her control; she doesn't want to lose that just because she won't be a cop anymore.

She won't be a cop anymore.

Wow.

She's so not ready to think about that right now.

* * *

It's better in the park, the pulled muscle stretching as she runs, feeling the power begin to flow through her veins as she comes to the end of the first stiff, painful mile. At last she finds her stride, breath coming easier now, wiping out that restless-on-the-edge-of-panic thing she's been fighting since she left Castle's apartment. It's still there, but smaller, like a feeling of being watched from the shadows, of forgetting something important, of being in the wrong place while something awful is happening to someone she loves somewhere else. All of which she knows is in her head, echo of the PTSD that nearly took her down earlier in the year. She doesn't want to keep running to Burke like she needs therapy to get her through the start of this relationship, but it is probably something she should talk to him about. It's going to drive her crazy if she starts feeling like she can't be away from Castle for more than five minutes without plagues of locusts (or worse) raining down.

Back in her apartment, the feeling she's forgetting something is still there. It's not the precinct, there's nothing left for her to do there. It's not Esposito; she called him when she got back from Castle's just to see how he was taking the suspension, and found him up in the Bronx, playing tag with his nieces. It's not her dad, who she wants so badly to tell, but she's not ready to talk about this yet, not just yet, her happiness all bound up in so much misery and anger and stupid, stupid bravado that almost got her killed. Again.

It clicks into place so suddenly she can only surmise that she's been completely blocking it out. As her obsession blocks the sun from that window, throwing her office into shadow, even on a bright, warm day like this.

Kate throws open the shutters holding her improvised murder board, and bit by bit, photos and printouts and post-its, begins to take it all down.

Her phone chirps at her an hour later. Him, sending through a picture of himself and Alexis, holding giant scoops of straciatella out towards the camera.

_I told her. She said 'finally'. And then we went for ice cream. How are you?_

Kate holds her phone out to the window, open now, a cool breeze blowing through the fronds of a small fern she's set on the sill, the late afternoon sun making the circles etched into the stained glass glow. She snaps the photo and hits _send _before she thinks too much about it.

She holds her breath until the reply comes, a picture of him doing the Home Alone face. Or maybe it's The Scream. Either way, it makes her laugh, disperses the watched feeling once and hopefully for all, replaces panic with joy, paranoia with love.

Oh god, she loves this man so much.

* * *

It's 7:15 when she gets back to the loft, fifteen minutes early, but she just couldn't stay still any longer, and even walking to slow down the travel time didn't help. It's crazy to be all jacked up about having dinner with someone she's known so long already, but it's a date. With Richard Castle. Okay, it's _like _a date, but not really a date, because a date would mean they're just now getting to know each other, and she and Castle went right past dating into forever, so it's not like she has to worry about getting her makeup just right (though she had to give up on the eyeliner because her hands were shaking too much to draw a straight line) or what to wear (though her bed is now piled with rejected choices) or what they have in common to talk about (not a problem) or getting called into work in the middle of dessert (so _definitely _not going to be a problem tonight).

So what is she so goddamned nervous about?

She catches the reflection of herself in the polished steel doors of the elevator as she waits for them to open and now she knows why Castle's concierge smiled so knowingly at her when she came in. She looks just a little flustered from walking too fast, a little disheveled, her colour high and her breath coming in audible little huffs. She looks like a woman in love, about to go and get her man, and _for god's sake, why is his goddamned elevator so goddamned slow?_

But it's Alexis who opens the door to her impatient knock, and Kate has to take a quick step back, catch her breath, jolted like she's just put her foot down on a step that isn't there. Her training kicks instinctively into gear, checking the girl's face for tells, her body posture for signs of discomfort. She's a little stiff, a little shy. Or perhaps, Kate realises, Alexis is only reflecting the way she herself feels. Because this is going to be something different between them now, isn't it? Alexis isn't going to be the distant daughter of a close friend any more. Kate isn't going to be just someone her father knows. She's going to be in the girl's life now as something else, her dad's lover, a parental figure of some sort. Perhaps one day even her stepmother, but that's too far in the future for any of them to think about right now, when she and Castle haven't even been together for twenty-four hours.

'Hi,' Kate says, and then can't seem to get any farther. Castle said Alexis was okay with this, but what if she's not, what if that cool appraising look Alexis is giving her is how she really feels, but she didn't want to hurt her Dad's feelings-

And then Alexis is giving her a hug, short and sharp. 'Don't hurt him,' she whispers fiercely into Kate's ear.

Kate hugs back before she realises what she's doing, holding the girl in place. Would she have done this yesterday? The day before? It doesn't matter, she's doing it now. She got here, however long it took, and this time she's not going to be able to keep one foot out the door. 'I won't,' she whispers back. And then, 'I'm done being an idiot. I promise.'

She feels Alexis' laugh ripple through the girl's body before she hears it. It's okay to let go now, to draw back far enough to check each other's faces for truth while things shift and reconfigure between them. It occurs to Kate that Castle's daughter will be gaining a mother at just about the age Kate lost one, and how very odd it is that she'll be there for all the milestones in Alexis' life her own mother will be missing in hers.

_Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans._

Kate puts a hand over her heart, checks for the ring silently framing the gunshot scar. She stopped wearing it two years ago for reasons she's not entirely clear about, even now. But with the murder board gone, it felt like time to put it back on. She wants her mother with her on this journey. Not for her death, but for the way she went at life full-tilt, the way Kate did too, _before_. She thinks maybe she's ready to have that back now, to love the way her mother loved, the tenderness and the passion, and yes, even the fights, those stupid teenaged fights that Kate wished for a long time they'd never had. She hopes now that one day she can have those kinds of fights with Alexis, the kind where it's okay to get angry because you know you're loved. And that there will be tears and hugs and apologies and ice cream when it's all done.

For now, though, it's a tentative smile, and a stepping back, letting Kate through the door.

And there he is. Looking like he wants to lick her from head to toe, like he can't believe she's here, like he didn't believe she was going to come back to him after all, and god she can't bear to wait another _second _to have him in her arms.

'Seriously, you two are _sickening_,' Alexis snorts, even though they haven't done anything yet, Kate hasn't even moved. 'I'm going to my room and giving you fifteen minutes to get that out of your system or I'm not going out with you two in public.'

'Uh-huh,' Kate agrees happily, reaching for Castle's shirt to pull him closer, close enough to drown in that magnificent, impish smile.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks to all for the reviews, and for those nudging for updates to Paris or Mornings, those will eventually get finished - I just can't promise when. Right now I have this in my head, which just wants OUT, so...peace offering? Beckett-type apology (I'm sorry, I'm so sorry)? __Unbeta'ed, unedited, which is why the chapters are coming so fast._ I don't normally write and post immediately, so hopefully I won't write myself into a blind alley, but I'm pretty sure I know where it's going, just not how it's going to get there. Hopefully, it'll be as much of an adventure to read as to write. 

_Dedicated to my usual betas, who are probably gritting their teeth right about now...  
_

* * *

He tries not to watch them too closely over dinner, his daughter and his...his _Kate. _Any other designation seems too strange right now. It's odd and awkward, although not in an unpleasant sense, not in any way that isn't subject to change. The polite tone of the conversation, the genuine desire to connect, the fear each of them seems to have of overwhelming the other - surely that will disappear, will lessen as they get used to these new roles they all inhabit now?

It's a little dizzying for him as well, to be honest, how quickly things have changed between them. The traits he used to admire in her as a cop - her singlemindedness, her complete absorption in her work - he's on the receiving end of those now. As if this is something she's relentlessly committed to seeing through, even as her hesitancy telegraphs that she still sees herself as some kind of intruder. An extra, unexpected (although not unwelcome) guest at what was supposed to be Alexis' family graduation dinner. It's in her body language, the slightly distant, slightly formal way she's always been around his family, still unchanged. Thank god for his mother, already more than a little drunk on champagne, happily holding forth on his daughter's valedictory speech.

Kate's smile is warm, if reserved. 'I wish I could have seen that,' she says, and he remembers what she was actually doing while Alexis was graduating. For a moment, it's like ice water hits his veins, thinking of what yesterday might have been, and how unbearable he would have found today.

He struggles away from that abyss in time to catch his mother saying, 'Don't worry, darling, you'll be there for the next one,' and making a grand gesture of patting Kate's arm across the table. 'Maybe even with a little one in tow.'

He sees Kate choke slightly on her own breath and shoots a dark glare at his mother. 'What?' Martha asks, all mock innocence and delight. 'I'm only saying it's _possible_.'

'I think maybe...one day at a time?' Kate is saying but he catches the quick glance she throws at Alexis, whose face is carefully neutral.

'Well, of course, my dear, but just remember, those days pass so much faster than you realise,' Martha answers, raising her glass to Alexis. 'Look how quickly this one's grown.'

'To Alexis,' Castle says quickly, defusing the moment. 'This family's first bona fide grown-up.' And they laugh and toast and the moment that was teetering on the brink of falling over finds its balance and carries on.

* * *

They're alone now; his mother has taken Alexis back to the loft. Or, considering how much champagne Martha put away, it may well be the other way around. Not that he wanted them gone, but now that they are, he can't help but savour the the fact that there's nothing between him and Kate but a deliciously sinful chocolate mousse. A mousse which she's savouring in a most indecent fashion, turning the spoon against her tongue, eyes closing around a soft, appreciative purr. He has no idea if she's doing it on purpose, or if this is just how Kate Beckett eats a superb chocolate mousse, with her lips and tongue and back and soul, but if she doesn't stop it he might have to throw her on the table right here, right now, and lick every morsel of chocolate from the inside of her mouth.

'Kate,' he says, although it comes out a bit more like a tortured moan. She opens eyes flecked amber in the dim, atmospheric light of the restaurant, ringed with a soft smudge of pencil instead of the heavy liner and multiple layers of mascara she usually wears. He likes the way it makes her look, less dramatic, yet somehow more intensely _there_. Her expression is innocent, of course, too damned innocent, and he takes the spoon out of her mouth, leans forward and steals a sweet, chocolatey kiss. If there are paparazzi lurking around he's probably just given a few of them a money shot, but he can't bring himself to care. 'Come home with me,' he whispers. 'Please. Now?'

She's softened since the other two went home, her back a little less straight, her smile a little wider and more frequent. But there's still a flash of regret in her eyes that tells him he's not going to like what he's about to hear.

'Castle, would it...' She stutters off, takes a breath and lifts her gaze from where it's drifted to his lips. 'Would it be okay if I didn't? I just...the last couple of days have been a lot to take in. I really need some time to process.'

His phone trills in his pocket, receiving a text, most likely Alexis telling him they're home safe and sound. Yes, he's that kind of worrywort dad. This time he ignores it, focusses on Kate, looking for tells, trying to hide the way his own heart is plummetting somewhere down around his toes. He should think of this as a good sign, really, that she feels safe enough to ask him for the space she needs, instead of letting him slobber all over her like a happy pup. But he just can't. The idea of letting her out of his sight so soon after the long afternoon apart (which he enjoyed, of course, spending time with Alexis isn't something he takes for granted) just fills him with despair. How can she bear to spend their second night together apart? Surely she can't be sick of him yet?

'One more night,' he hears himself blurt. 'Please? You asked for a day and I gave you a day. Please just give me one more night.'

'Oh, Castle. Castle...' She sounds like she did when she apologised, full of anguish and regret, and he hates himself for making her feel like she has to apologise again. She slides a hand around the back of his neck, pulls him closer, so that her lips can find his forehead. 'I won't run away again, I promise. I'm just exhausted, that's all.' She pulls away a little so he can see her smile, a tiny smirk still tinged with an incongruent sadness. 'We didn't exactly get much sleep last night.'

'I can let you sleep,' he answers, making his eyes big and wide, going for goofball to hide the roil of desperation inside his head. She rolls her own eyes in answer to that suggestion, but her smile is widening, getting more real.

'Alexis? And your _mother_, Castle.'

'We'll be vewwy qwiet. And then I'll let you sleep. Or we can go to yours, if you'd rather.'

'Alexis is expecting you home,' she says quickly, a brief shadow crossing her face. Reluctance to have him in her space, he hopes, not reluctance to be with him. He can deal with Kate needing her own separate space. Actually, he'd be surprised if she didn't, someplace that's still completely her own, where he hasn't invaded. Because he's very very happy to have her invade his space all she wants, he's used to sharing, and the thought of her calling his loft even very slightly home - her shampoo in the shower, her toothbrush next to his - takes away the flutter of panic that at any given second he could say the wrong thing, make the wrong gesture, and she'll walk away, never to return.

He's got to get over that, he knows, but it needs...it will need time. They need time. Together.

She strokes his nose with hers, that gentle caress that is so very _her_, that tells him more than words that she wants him, loves him, or she would never allow him to get this close. All the roil of emotion suddenly calms, made nothing by the smell of her hair, the brush of her lashes against his cheek. 'All right,' she whispers. 'But you'll need to make me pancakes in the morning. And absolutely not before ten.'

'Absolutely,' he says, nuzzling her back, since he's grinning far too widely to shape his lips into a kiss.

* * *

It's later that he remembers the message, and once he does, he has to get out of bed to make sure it really was Alexis. Paula is out on the West Coast, drumming up interest in _Heat Wave_, which has finally finished post-production; he's actually been waiting all week for her to text him a firm date for the premiere.

Kate is asleep against his chest again, her mouth slightly open, her limbs flung over him like she's claiming possession. Which, of course, she has. As he claimed possession of her earlier, slow, gentle possession, savouring the whisper of her skin against his, the languid motion of her hands caressing his back as he stroked her from the inside out, their first night's inferno compacting into hot embers, now carefully banked until they're more energetic. Or they're alone in the house.

He holds back the laugh at his own joke, not wanting to disturb her, but the itch to know is getting overwhelming and the slightly damp patch on his chest suggests that nothing is going to wake Kate Beckett right now. He gently turns her onto her back, waiting while she mumbles something incoherent and curls up on her other side, almost immediately going still again. Then he sets about to find the jeans he was wearing amongst the clothes strewn across the floor.

He finds a pair of jeans and a soft cotton shirt, both hers, folds them while trying to see more clearly in the dim light. It hits him then, what he's doing, folding Kate's clothes, laying them over the back of a chair so they don't wrinkle. He's taking care of her. She's letting him take care of her. Okay, not letting exactly, because she's sound asleep while he's doing this, but he can imagine himself doing this a year from now, or ten. Washing her clothes, drawing them warm from the dryer and folding them in neat piles, the way he does for Alexis or she for him. Sharing in the day-to-day, the mundane, the little things that bind a family together. Binding Kate into his family, making his life truly theirs.

He smiles, finding his jeans at last, draws his phone out and thumbs it on.

One text, three words, and it all comes crumbling down in a flash of white horror. The message is from Smith. It says: _get her run._


	4. Chapter 4

_Sorry for the delay. LONG busy week, and then these two would just NOT behave. _

* * *

Castle stares at the phone in his hand for an untold number of minutes, his mind an odd blank around the most basic set of questions. How far do they need to run? For how long?

He clicks the phone off finally, raising his eyes to the black smartboard. If they can wake the dragon, can't they put him back to sleep? Call it a truce, no harm, no foul? Let the dragon get on with his life, no threat from them hanging over his head, and let them do the same.

How angry could she be, if he passes that message on? She has no more access, no leverage. And didn't she already swear that she's done?

Castle thumbs the phone back on, returns Smith's text with a call.

The phone rings on. And on. And on.

He ends the call, perplexed, then nearly jumps out of his skin as the phone comes back to life, vibrating in his hand.

* * *

'Kate.'

She nuzzles the warm palm cupping her cheek, untangles a sleepy hand from the covers and trails it up his arm. She encounters the sleeve of a t-shirt and twists her fingers in it, uses it to pull him closer. Even half asleep, her eyes still closed, a hot current of desire shoots through her at the idea that she can do this. With him. That they finally took a deep breath and dove in together.

'Kate,' he murmurs, 'I need you to wake up.'

She rolls onto her back and tugs again, wanton, needing the heavy weight of him between her parted legs. 'Come back to bed.'

'No, Kate, I can't—' he stutters, but still he comes, his mouth warm against her neck, his hair tickling her cheek as she unbalances him and pulls him close. He groans into her ear and then he's moving away, his hands stroking down her arms in farewell.

Gone.

She sits up with a gasp, suddenly fully awake. Strange bed in a strange place. His place, his bed. She didn't dream them together, he's standing right here beside her in a Green Lantern t-shirt and rumpled hair, an unreadable expression on his face. Still, she feels weirdly disconnected, not quite sure which is real - the two of them making love what seems like five minutes ago, or this distant man with the clenched jaw and oddly shadowed eyes.

Surely they're not back to that. She fixed that, didn't she? Apologised, told him what he meant- 'Castle?' Her voice comes out strangled, higher than it should. 'What's going on?'

'Kate, I need you to tell me what happened the other day. Before you came over.'

The flat affect to his voice prickles at the back of her neck. 'Now? At-' she glances at the clock on his nightstand '-one am?'

He reaches over and tugs the covers down, draws his fingers lightly over the triangular bruise at the bottom of her ribs. His face confirms he's been with the cops long enough to know it for what it is – the toe of a boot. She has other bruises as well, some as small as the fingermarks on the back of her arms, some larger, like the one across her hip she must have gotten when she rolled over the edge of the roof. The first night they were together, it was all too frenzied for him to notice, and every time since, she's made sure he had better things to do with his tongue than ask. And now here he is, demanding answers she's not really sure she should give. The bruises belong to another life, a Kate Beckett she can't be anymore. Not if she wants to live and be with him.

'Kate. You said you almost died. What did you do?'

'Nothing. It was just…' She pushes his hand away and draws the covers back up. 'It was stupid. I went after someone without proper backup, we fought, he got away. It's done.'

'Did you see a file? Kate, did he have a file?'

'He had lots of files, Castle. He's the one who broke into Montgomery's house.'

'Not those files, another one. The one Montgomery sent the night he died.'

'I never got a chance to look. Castle, what is going _on_?

He comes towards her, perches gingerly on her side of the bed and hands her his phone. The text is brief, self-explanatory really. Castle's face is unreadable, totally closed.

She swallows against the feeling of her own throat closing up. So much they haven't talked about, and there's no time for careful explanations now. 'Is this him?' she asks. 'Your contact?'

'He's not a contact. He's the guy who's protecting you, the guy Montgomery trusted with your life. With Evelyn's life, and his children's lives.' His voice is sharp, and Kate literally bites her tongue, presses it between her teeth to hold back her response. 'He said his name was Smith. I'm going to guess that's probably not his real name. But who he is, that's not important right now. The message is what's important.'

She hands him back the phone. 'So, what? He sends you a text and you do whatever it says?'

'I'm not in his pocket, Kate. He warns me if there's something to warn me about. That's all.'

'At one in the morning?'

'It came while we were at dinner. I didn't check it at the time because we were...busy.' There's no devilish gleam to his eyes, and no responsive tug from inside her, thinking of exactly what they were busy doing. Nothing but panic beginning a sluggish swirl.

One day. She'd asked for a day and that's exactly what they'd gotten. One good day. And now here she is again, poised again at the edge of the rabbit hole, her fingers slipping, her own weight dragging her down. 'I'm not running away, Castle. I don't even know what I'm running from.'

'Kate, he's never sent a text before. Usually he calls. I tried calling him back, but there's no answer. And then, just now, I got a call from someone claiming to be from the precinct, asking if I knew where you were.'

'Why would they be calling you?'

'Apparently you're not answering your phone either.'

'I- oh.' She looks towards the door, through which she can see his shoes, her shirt, strewn across the floor of the study. 'It must be out there somewhere, in my jacket.'

'Do you know a detective Freemantle?'

'Yeah, he works robbery with Tom. I met him once, a couple of years ago. Why would he be looking for me in the middle of the night?'

'Because, Kate, it's your apartment that's been robbed.'

* * *

He comes closer now, sits beside her and takes her hands, a little surprised when she doesn't try to fight him off. 'Listen to me. That message came in _hours_ ago, probably it was meant to warn us this was about to happen. I told Freemantle I had no idea where you were and I think we should stick to that. I don't think you should go home. And I don't think we should stay here, either, it's bound to be the next place they look.'

'I don't want to run away, Castle. I've been doing that for months.'

'This is different. Kate, you can't go back to your apartment. If they didn't find what they're looking for, they'll have found something else.'

'I don't _know_ where the damn file is, Castle. Even you don't know.'

'Kate, the murder board. In your window.'

She looks up at him, her eyes wider now, a little frightened. 'It wouldn't have occurred to them to open the shutters. They wouldn't have found it.'

'They might if they were—'

'But it isn't hidden anymore. I took it down. I took it down and I wanted to burn everything, but I wasn't quite ready for that yet, so I stuffed it all in an envelope and just threw it in a drawer. They'll have everything now, they'll know exactly how much we know.' She sucks in a sharp breath and for a moment she looks like she did the last time they worked this case together, over a year ago, all big eyes and trembling hands, saying _gone Castle, everybody's gone._

'Come with me,' he says, taking her hand and tugging. She untangles herself from his bed slowly, reluctantly, the light of the one lamp glowing golden on her skin, shadowing her bones. He hands her his robe and she wraps it around herself, instantly lost in the folds. She seems so huge to him most of the time that it almost hurts, to be reminded of how slim she really is, how fragile despite all her strength and training. The bruises are reminder enough of what they're up against, and how hopelessly overpowered they are.

He leans in, places a kiss at the point of her cheekbone, which she accepts without comment, and he breathes a little easier. So far, she's still with him. So good.

He leads her into his office, guides her to the chair by his desk. Her fingers clench around his as he disengages, but he has to let go. He'll need both hands for what's about to come.

'I made this. Over the summer,' he says, turning the smartboard on. He walks over to it, double-taps the trash and drags the file back out, watching it blossom as it hits the active part of the board. 'So, you see, the information we had, it isn't all gone.'

He turns back to see her hunched over his desk, her hands over her face, breathing in short, sharp gasps. 'I don't…take it down, please, Castle. I can't. I just…I can't. I can't. I've died too many times for this already, I don't have any more lives left.'

'Okay, we won't, it's finished,' he says quickly, putting the board back to sleep and dropping the remote onto a pile of unopened mail. For a long moment there's only the night-quiet, the hum of the fridge and the muffled traffic below and the sound of Kate trying to get herself under control. He looks at the titles of his books, the windows across the street - anywhere but at her, or their clothes on the floor, or the rumpled bed in the other room. It's like they somehow woke the dragon again through the sheer force of their happiness.

But no, that's not how it was, he reminds himself, before he can storify it into something else. They were not here yet, and then they were done. The dragon woke up for some other reason and went after Montgomery's files, not after them. Or maybe the dragon didn't wake again at all. Maybe the shooter wanted the files for some other reason, maybe he has his own plans for taking the dragon down.

He turns to tell her that and thinks better of it at the same moment that she raises her head. Her eyes so much softer without the heavy makeup to outline them, the edge of her mouth blurred. He feels his heart expanding towards her like the Grinch's, breaking any frame that's meant to hold it.

'All right,' she breathes, her eyes locked on his. 'If we're going to run, we're going to need a plan.'

* * *

_Reviews are like chocolate: maybe not necessary for life, but still awfully yummy when you get some..._


	5. Chapter 5

_OMG, these two. Seriously. First they won't shut up, now they won't talk. Sorry this took so long and is so short, it's all I could drag out of them for now. _

_BTW, there is no douchebag arc in my season 4. Castle suspected in Rise that she'd heard him, and that's good enough to justify his accusation in Always without needing a whole lot of utterly unpleasant nonsense._

* * *

He's still trying to read her, finds that this is one of those times that he just can't. Of all the responses he thought he might get once she found his summer project, _no, no take it down _wasn't really one of them. He's not sure whether he should be worried, or just be glad he's not going to have to go nine rounds to convince her to hear him out.

'I may already have a plan,' he admits. 'Or, well...I started a plan.' She watches without comment as he moves behind her, lifts the huge photograph of the stairway off the wall. He's never worried too much about hiding his safe – he'd always figured that if anyone did actually get in to look for it, better they could find it without tearing the place apart. Until last summer, there was nothing in it anyway but some deeds and a will and a few thousand bucks. And then Beckett got shot. And he made a plan. A wild, crazy, feverish plan, spawned in the tedium of an entire summer spent waiting for her to call. Until he gave up hope, and frankly, forgot about what he'd done, shamed by the realisation that he was acting like some Disneyfied white knight, dashing off to rescue the fair maiden from her dragon captor.

And then Smith had called, and he'd put part one of the plan in action. Just in case. Just in case Smith failed. In case Montgomery had lied more than they'd realised. In case the dragon was really on the hunt for Kate Beckett after all.

She's watching him like a cop watches a suspect who's reaching into his pocket for some ID - wary, but willing to give him a chance to explain himself. It looks wrong with her mussed hair, the angles of her body lost in the soft folds of his robe. Wrong with the real fear he can see smouldering in the back of her eyes, now momentarily under control.

Castle takes the thick envelope out of the safe and empties the contents on the desk. Five smaller envelopes, each with a name. He picks out the one he's looking for and hands it to her, heart in his mouth, avoiding her pointed look. He already knows what the envelope contains. Canadian passport and drivers licence, debit card for a bank in the Cayman Islands, all in the name of Caitlin Alice Jones.

She looks at the passport, at her own picture it in. 'Castle…how?'

'Remember my old buddy, Sal?' Clearly not, by the blank look on her face. 'Years ago, that case with the mobster.'

'The case that got my ex-boyfriend shot?'

He swallows strongly. Yeah, he'd kind of forgotten about that part.

'The case where you gave my mom's casefile to your doctor friend behind my back and I didn't talk to you for the next three months?'

Now he can't even swallow. Her face is closed, shuttered, her voice absolutely neutral. Yeah, like she's talking to a suspect she's got cornered. God knows he feels like one. 'I went back to Sal. After. After you got shot,' he starts. _The other time you didn't talk to me for three months_, he almost adds, but for once in his life manages to hold his tongue. 'We couldn't get a lead on the guy, couldn't figure out why you were still a target. We didn't know Montgomery had a file. So I went to Sal and I got...insurance.'

She reaches for the next envelope he hands her. It's his, Frederick Jones. Two more envelopes, one for his daughter and one for his mother, both passport only. He's not crazy enough to give his mother direct access to his money and his daughter doesn't need it. And the last. He lets out his breath and inadvertently holds it again as she opens the passport to see the picture and the name Samuel Jones.

'I knew if it ever came down to using these, I wouldn't want to leave my mother behind,' he rasps. 'I thought you might feel the same about your dad.'

She's absolutely frozen and he can't tell if that's good or bad.

'Kate, if we just-'

She shoves the passports away and abruptly stands, heading for the balcony doors as if she needs some air. And then turns away from the doors, her look a little too wild, a little too _windows! windows!_, brushes by him and heads back into the bedroom. He gives her a second and then follows, finding her standing with her back to the wall, staring at the mussed bed as if it's a rhinocerous or something equally out of place. Or as if she is. He realises he shouldn't reach for her just as he does, but instead of leaping away she turns towards him, reaching up to wind her arms around his neck.

'I didn't want us to start like this. With this hanging over us. That's why I didn't say I'd heard you. Not because I didn't want you, Castle, but because I did.'

He raises his hands to her back, spreads his fingers over her shoulderblades. Even through the thick robe he can feel how thin she still is, even now. Cannot imagine how fragile she must have been a year ago. 'It's okay, Kate. It was bad timing, I know that now.'

A sharp laugh goes through her, rattling into his own chest. 'It was _terrible_ timing.' She raises her head, nuzzling against the corner of his mouth while his body freezes, unsure whether or not to be hurt, finding it kind of hard to concentrate on anything while she's doing _that_. 'But it was chivalrous and romantic. And also completely melodramatic and soap operaish-'

'Okay, I think I get it, I was being a-'

She pulls him down, kisses the words right out of his mouth. 'Thank you for thinking about my dad.'

He stares at her, heart pounding, and not just from the force of her kiss. The fact of her kiss. Well, okay, and that. He's still not used to that. He thinks maybe he's never going to get used to that, and maybe he never should. Just like he's never going to be able to predict the way she'll react to anything, because he certainly didn't expect to be kissed and thanked for going behind her back and doing something as crazy as this.

She puts a hand to his face, lightly rubbing at the stubble around his chin. He realises he's about to get lost in some fantasy Beckett who's angry at him, which is utterly stupid when the real Beckett is right here, looking at him like...

Wow. Like that? Like...maybe he did something right this time. Or at least not wrong. Like it's okay that his armour is old and the visor keeps dropping over his face and when he falls off his horse he's not very good at getting back up again. Like he's _her _knight regardless, tarnished and battered, but loved.

'You're really not mad at me?'

Tarnished, battered and squeaky. _Great_.

She drops her hand and steps away to gather the little blue booklets together, replacing each one in the proper envelope. 'I might have been. Before. Now...now I just want to be done. With this case and every single thing about it. And it just keeps coming back.' He hears the sharp edge to her voice now, grief and fear. But mostly fear. 'I can't keep us all safe here, Castle. I have no badge, no weapon. My backup was in my apartment. And the badge was never really going to help. I know that now. So, no, I'm not mad at you. Although your mother might be a bit surprised to find out that she's apparently married to my father.'

He catches the strain beneath the attempt to joke it away. She pushes the stack of envelopes towards him and he picks them up, wondering yes, really, what he was thinking when he picked out those names?

'I thought…it would look less odd if we were all one family, travelling together.' She looks up at him at last, face so much softer than he was expecting. 'We could be brother and sister, we don't have to—'

'Castle, don't. Are we in this?'

He drops the envelopes and comes around the desk, reaches for her and pulls her into his arms before she can have any doubts about his intentions. 'Yes. Yes. Kate, I'm so sorry I opened the case, I'm—'

'No, I'm sorry I brought my mess to your doorstep. I didn't want this like _this_, but this is how it's happening and I'm not—' She stops short, presses her face into his chest, her whole body going completely still. And then, after a long moment, she draws a slow, shaky breath and lifts her head. 'I'm not letting them have this.' Her fists are wound tight into the back of his shirt, her face as set and stubborn as he's ever seen it. She takes another breath, stronger, deeper, as if raising herself up to Beckett-height, growing the three inches she usually gets from her heels. 'I don't know what it took for you to get those passports. How much it _cost_, Castle, five of them. But I know _why _you did it. And I'm done being stupid about that. So yes. I want you. I want this. And if the only way for us to have this is to run away, then yes, okay, let's run like hell and take everyone we love with us.'


End file.
